Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
ACT ONE
Scene 1
(Palm Sunday 1461. A dell in the north of
England)
Prelude
(A chorus of children, men and women enter
right and cross the stage in festive procession.)
CHILDREN, MEN, WOMEN
Sloes are blossoming in the hedges,
warbles singing in the sedges;
Spring returning to the ***
brings the palm,
Winter s balm,
while the merry bells, merry bells jingle.
Starry celandine is blowing,
late unfettered streams are flowing.
Cherub children from the ***
bear the palm,
Lenten balm,
while the merry bells, merry bells jingle.
Scene 2
(Lady Clifford and her retinue appear stage right.
They are closely followed by Lady Clifford's son
Henry)
Duet
LADY CLIFFORD
Our Lady of Bolton preserve thee,
Henry mine!
HENRY
A messenger
arrived but now. At Towton,
through the live-long night
in blinding snow, in driving sleet,
their forces meet!
LADY CLIFFORD
May God support the right!
HENRY
The stream is choked with bodies of the dead.
The waves run red!
Lady Clifford
Alas! Thy father... What of him?
HENRY
He lives and leads.
Lady Clifford
Ah!
The Holy Saints be praised!
HENRY
False Saint John leads against him.
LADY CLIFFORD
Recreant knight!
HENRY
And Gloucester!
LADY CLIFFORD
Name of dread.
He in whose breast, implacable, resides
the poison of revenge,
whose flooding tides,
an ever broadening horror, first arose
when York slew Clifford at St. Albans;
thence it took a gathering wave,
till Clifford's son, at Wakefield,
vented vengeance on that York
and now, alies!
the outraged blood of York
maddens this Gloucester,
crying: "Blood for blood!"
HENRY
O, Mother, why
didst thou deny
my longing for the fray?
I was no knight
to shun the fight,
my mother to obey!
LADY CLIFFORD
Ah! Who have I
if Clifford die
at yonder fearful fray?
Thou art my might,
my fife, my light!
Desert me not, I pray!
HENRY
Someone approaches.
CHILDREN
(returning)
Sloes are blossoming in the hedges,
warbles singing in the sedges;
Spring returning to the ***
brings the palm,
Winters balm,
while the merry bell, merry bells jingle.
Scene 3
(Enter Lady Saint John. She approaches Lady Clifford.)
Duet
LADY SAINT JOHN
So am I quite unknown?
LADY CLIFFORD
Thy voice is like an echo from the past.
LADY SAINT JOHN, LADY CLIFFORD
(alternately)
For we were playmates when the world was young.
(Lady Clifford looks more closely at Lady Saint
John and recognises her.)
LADY CLIFFORD
The Lady Saint John!
HENRY
This the famous witch!
LADY SAINT JOHN
Say rather "Sibyl", as thou Margaret art.
Those names ran
riot over every heart
when we were playmates
and the world was young.
LADY CLIFFORD, LADY SAINT JOHN
O happy days
when we were mays
and roamed among
the woodland ways!
No more we reck
of forest bowers,
no more we deck
our frocks with flowers.
The lovers' bird
no more is heard!
His song was sung
when the world was young!
O happy days
when we were young!
LADY CLIFFORD
But thou has bome the rebel rose of white!
My rose is rose!
LADY SAINT JOHN
My name, but not my heart
bore *** roses.
Husbands may some reason,
but never wife nor mother,
to do treason.
LADY CLIFFORD
Then thou dost not espouse thy husband's cause?
LADY SAINT JOHN
King Henry is my king!
My husband is a renegade,
false to his vow,
to knighthood and the Throne!
Against all the stars fight in their courses.
King Henry is my king!
Henry is my king!
LADY CLIFFORD
Thou art unhappy,
I am glad thou cam'st!
LADY CLIFFORD. LADY SAINT JOHN
O happy days, etc.
Scene 4
Trio
HENRY
(to his mother)
Beware! She is a witch!
LADY SAINT JOHN
Do thou beware!
Above thy head,
detested care
and doomful dread
are downward hovering
through the air!
LADY CLIFFORD
Oh say not so!
HENRY
Believe her not!
LADY CLIFFORD
Oh! Cruel hour!
LADY SAINT JOHN
I come to save thee from the foe!
HENRY
Believe her not!
LADY CLIFFORD
(to Lady Saint John)
Oh! might I dare to trust thy power!
HENRY
(to Lady Clifford)
Believe her not!
LADY SAINT JOHN
(to Henry)
Do thou beware!
Scene 5
(Enter a messenger.)
MESSENGER
All is lost!
The battle's o'er!
King Henry's forces fly!
Lord Clifford's men are slain!
LADY CLIFFORD
What of my lord?
MESSENGER
I know no more!
LADY SAINT JOHN
(to Henry)
Thus I foretold thy destiny!
Worse tidings yet remain.
HENRY
But I defy unholy art and prophecy!
LADY SAINT JOHN
To fight with fate is vain!
HENRY
But I defy thy prophecy!
LADY CLIFFORD
What of my lord?
LADY CLIFFORD'S MEN
Beware of the witch
and her evil eye!
Will she swim or sink?
To the pond and try!
If she float, she must swim
on the gallows high.
If she drown, she will die!
Yes, she will die!
Scene 6
(Enter Colin, one of Lord Clifford's men.)
COLIN
Sir John Saint John approaches!
HENRY
(to Lady Saint John)
This was the meaning of thy play!
Thou wouldst prepare thy husband's way!
by preaching peril and dismay!
LADY CLIFFORD'S MEN
Beware of the witch!
Beware of the witch!
LADY CLIFFORD
(to Henry)
Why anger her? She is our friend.
(to Colin)
Thou hadst not brought thy tidings to en end!
What of my Lord?
COLIN
(to point to Henry)
Edward of York sends warrant by Sir John
to seize the land and person of my liege,
Lord Clifford.
LADY CLIFFORD
Lord Clifford!
Then is his father dead?
Speak, for thy silence stabs me!
COLIN
All the night our force he led;
to left and right the foemen fled!
To Gloucester side he carved his way;
"Revenge", they cried, intent to slay.
But spent was Clifford's destrier,
he stumbled; on the field he knelt!
His harness broke!
Then Gloucester dealt
the fatal felon stroke!
LADY CLIFFORD
(faints)
Ah!
LADY CLIFFORD'S RETINUE
Pray for the soul of a chieftain departed!
Call on the ***, and all the Saints call!
Fiercest of foes,
and of friends truest-hearted,
brave in the battle, and sage in the hall.
Pray for a soul of a knight
never craven!
Through the mêlée how bravely he bore!
Pray for his soul
that it reach a fair haven;
for the bow'r and the battle
shall know him no more!
Pray for the soul of a chieftain departed!
HENRY
To arms! this mandate to resist
writ with my father's blood,
borne by his murderer's dog!
Revenge! Revenge for the dead!
LADY CLIFFORD'S RETINUE
A Clifford! Revenge for the dead!
To arms! To arms!
To arms! To arms!
HENRY, LADY CLIFFORD'S RETINUE
To arms, to arms!
In field and street
now throb all hearts
with joyous pain.
To arms! To arms!
Fond brides repeat
the martial strain!
To arms! To arms!
The mother starts,
the lovers 'plain.
To arms! To arms!
Again! Again!
The warrior cries again, again!
To arms!
Scene 7
Duet
LADY SAINT JOHN
What feeble wit is here
to fancy thou canst dam
this Yorkist deluge with thy fifty pikes?
HENRY
I do not ask thine aid,
but heaven's alone!
LADY SAINT JOHN
All power is God's.
The stars have said,
no vengeing brand
can harm thy head,
if thou their high behest obey,
if thou from thoughts of vengeance stay.
HENRY
Away, black beldame! Away!
I do not ask thine aid,
but heaven's alone!
My murdered sire is beckoning,
the foemen are arrayed!
I court the bloody reckoning!
I come, indignant shade!
LADY SAINT JOHN
O take a path more glorious
than war - the path of peace!
From vengeance wild and furious,
from *** of battle cease!
HENRY
(ignoring her)
I take thy weapon gory,
my heritage today!
The blade is stamped with glory;
the hilt is 'graved: "Repay!"
LADY SAINT JOHN
(prophetically)
Love shalt thou find in huts
where poor men lie,
thy daily teachers shall be
woods and rills,...
HENRY
Away! Away!
LADY SAINT JOHN
... the silence that is in the starry skies,
the sleep that is among the lovely hills.
I have a daughter fair, whose sprite
is full of unalloyed delight!
With hers thy better fate is bound!
HENRY
Who duty finds, his fate has found.
LADY SAINT JOHN
To win her love shall be thy task.
HENRY
Away!
No love I give, no love I ask.
LADY SAINT JOHN
Who wins her love must don these weeds.
HENRY
Away! black beldame!
Return again when Clifford needs
to cheat his peril with a base disguise!
Let thy false husband come!
Reserve thy charms to turn him back
again from false to true!
To arms! To arms!
LADY SAINT JOHN
Beware! Beware!
(Lady Clifford comes over to them, having recovered
from her fainting fit. Henry goes to meet her.)
LADY CLIFFORD
O woe! O woe!
O dreadful hour! Oh!
(to Lady Saint John)
If within this holy place
of heavenly guerdon, heavenly grace,
thou mayst aid my labouring heart
to bring forth hope,
grudge not thy art!
LADY SAINT JOHN
Oh! Bend a moment from thine awful throne,
thou angel of the universal chime!
Vouchsafe a vision of the future, thrown
like shadows forward on the clouds of time!
(Annie Saint John appears.)
ANNIE
Sweet are the visions, mysteriously stealing
out of the future on wings of happy dreams!
Sweet is the comfort that spirits come revealing,
showing the promise that on the pathway gleams.
Let the youth follow the spirit of the maiden,
her who is destined alone to be his mate.
She will protect him, eternally love-laden,
be his wing, fairy, the guardian of his fate!
LADY CLIFFORD'S RETINUE
Follow the woman spirit!
Onward and upward flash!
Far, far away the demons,
plying their pinions, gnash!
Follow the spirit through the noxious night!
Follow the woman spirit!
Follow her like the swallow
seeking for love and light!
LADY CLIFFORD
The foe draws near!
HENRY
(to Annie)
O maiden dear,
I'll win thee if I may!
LADY SAINT JOHN
Then doff the silk and satin,
And don the serge and say!
There is none other way.
HENRY
I would not doff mine honour!
LADY SAINT JOHN
I swear by yonder holy shrine:
in feast and field it shall be thine!
LADY CLIFFORD
Hear her, for mother's sake!
HENRY
For thee I'd take
more shameful garments!
and, that maid to win,
go barefoot ev'ry day!
LADY CLIFFORD
Come hither, Colin, faithful henchman, thou!
Be thou his guardian, 'til our roses grow
unbleached again!
(To Henry)
Upon Blencathara fells,
a lonely cottage stands, 'tis thine! Away!
May heaven confirm the right
when I am dispossessed!
LADY SAINT JOHN
I'll make it sure with spells.
(horns offstage)
LADY CLIFFORD
Blissful Mary, mother mild,
maid and mother undefiled,
save a mother and her child!
(Saint John's troops come into view.)
SIR JOHN'S MEN
Edward the king! March with a swing!
Follow the falcon and swift be his wing!
Hey for rose white, Warwick's delight!
Leave the red rose to the crow and the kite!
Margret may dance back into France!
Edward Plantagenet comes to his right!
SIR JOHN
(approaching them)
Where is the Lady Clifford?
LADY CLIFFORD
I am here!
SIR JOHN
King Edward...
LADY CLIFFORD
He was never king of mine!
SIR JOHN
But Towton placed the sceptre in his hand!
King Edward bids me to deliver these.
By these it is commanded, thine estates
of Bolton, Barden and Blencathara
are forfeited to me,
Sir Saint John, knight!
By these, a thousand pounds upon the head
of Clifford have been set, alive or dead!
Where is thy son?
LADY CLIFFORD
Safe! Safe beyond the seas!
LADY CLIFFORD'S RETINUE,
SIR JOHN'S MEN
Safe! Safe! Beyond the seas!
Ah!
LADY CLIFFORD'S RETINUE
Safe, safe may Clifford float
beyond our island moat!
No foe of his shall make us
sow or reap
until his banner
finds again its native wind,
and burgeon o'er the land from Barden keep!
Safe! Safe! Beyond the seas!
SIR JOHN'S MEN
Safe, safe beyond the seas!
What lying tales are these,
o man of arrows, and o man of sheep?
A lesson learnt by rote,
that droning children patter, half asleep:
"Safe! Beyond the moat!"
HENRY
(to him)
Though safe beyond the foam,
revenge would bring him home
to scourge the cowards
that make widows weep!
Though safe beyond the seas
while winter fortune freeze,
the young world bear him
fiercely o'er the deep!
No foe of his shall make us
sow or reap, etc.
Safe! Safe! Beyond the seas!
LADY CLIFFORD
Safe, safe beyond the seas
of fortune and the grave,
o husband, only for thy child I pray!
Ah! My child! Preserve him saints on High!
O, hear the widow's cry!
Restrain his courage
lest his words betray!
No foe of his shall make us
sow or reap, etc.
Safe! Safe! Beyond the seas!
SIR JOHN
(to him)
The nesting plover's cry!
The fledgling must be nigh!
She pipes to lure the falcon from her nest!
Bring hither yonder youth.
Strange words are these, forsooth,
to break the fold of any shepherd's breast.
Safe! Safe! Beyond the seas!
Safe! Safe! Beyond the moat!